Elf Paladin Racial Substitution

[HearTheRequiem]

Hail, fellow Playgrounders!

I was just flipping through Races Of The Wild, and I saw that Elf Paladins can get a Unicorn as their special Mount.
I've liked the idea of a Ranged Paladin for a while, but because I've not really built a Paladin or a ranged combatant before, I was wondering if I could get a general idea of how to do it?

As I understand, the Paladin is quite MAD, but there's a feat in a Dragon Magazine that keys everything off of Wisdom, right? Would that help at all?

So, Playgrounders, my challenge is thus - Could you please help me with building a decent ranged Elven Paladin?

[Snowbluff]

Hmm... you could go Ranger/Paladin, like, straight up. Ranger gives some nice free feats and stuff for Archery. Devoted Track is just plain cool, but too many ranger levels are harmful to you casting, which is pretty efficient since Paladin can gain the ability to cast everything as a swift action.

If you want Paladin to be effective, start by grabbing Battle Blessing and the Serenity or whatever the keying things off Wis is called.

As for archery, you only need to go as far as Rapid Shot. Zen Archer would let you dump Dex as well. Buffing up your Str and getting the DM to let you make all bows variable tension would be good.

[Yora]

The main problem of the paladin is the lack of any remotely useful class features after 5th level. And even those of the first five level really are not useful in combat at all. All you really get is hit points and BAB. So your entire archery would have to be based on feats, of which a paladin has very few.
So if you want to be at least halfway decent, you really should multiclass, preferedly after 5th level. Ranger is one option, as it gets you some archery feats and other class features. Alternatively, fighter also works very well, as it gets you bonus feats which you can use to improve your archery as well. Or a combination of both ranger and fighter levels. But unless you really, really want the paladin spells and the 2 bonus HD for your unicorn mount, you should not take any more than 5 levels of paladin.

If you play an archer and also an elf, you don't really need strength. But then you do need Dexterity, which a paladin usually does not need, so these two cancel each other out. But if you intend to stay out of melee, you don't need a high constitution. Which as an elf, you won't be having anyway. Wisdom only affects spells, of which you won't have any if you multiclass, so don't worry about it that much. 10 or 12 is totaly fine (even though it's mostly for roleplay, as the char could fight just as well with Wisdom of 3). It makes Zen Archery pointless and frees a feat that you can use for something else. And you'll need all feats you can get. If you multiclass with ranger, that class will get you a good amount of skill points, so you won't have to worry about intelligence at all. 10 is all fine. If you multiclass only with fighter, than having a few more skill points might be nice.
But as an archer paladin, you really need only Dex and Cha, which isn't very MAD and you even get a bonus to one as an elf.

[eggs]

My first recommendation would be fixing the Paladin. It's a weak class that doesn't offer much of anything as written; there's no reason to use it as-is: both the DMG and PHB advise players to modify classes to match concepts, and Paladin isn't going to do much to help you meet your concept. If you lose Remove Disease/Lay on Hands, drop HD to d8 and bump it up to the Bard's spellcasting advancement/CL, you'll have a workable framework without being overbearing. Swapping the Paladin's melee spells for some of the Ranger's archery spells (check Spell Compendium and Champions of Ruin) would pull the whole thing together.

But straightclassed and unmodified, Paladin doesn't do much to complement an archer. Most early feats will be tied up just getting archery to work at low levels, so unless you roll really well, you won't have very useful stat bonuses for secondary class features like spells or Divine Grace. Without Flaws, Zen Archery+Rapid Shot+Serenity can't come online until ECL 9.

And the Unicorn ACF is a very bad one. Unicorn is a standard Mount option available in the DMG (p204) at level 6, at only a 1-level penalty on advancement (compared to RotW's 6-level penalty). The ACF from Races of the Wild comes in a level early, but is fragile enough that it won't survive more than a wayward arrow or two.

Cleric 4/Ranger 1/Prestige Paladin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040206a) 3/Cleric X is probably the way to go here. With Elf domain, Rapid Shot comes online at ECL 1 and Cleric spells/domains keep it good at what it does. The Holy Mount feat from Dragon 325 stacks Paladin and Cleric levels for Mount advancement (allowing this to come ahead of the standard paladin in terms of mount progression, even with a Unicorn). If ranged smite is the point, a dip into a setting-adapted Cyran Avenger (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20050707b&page=2) 3 will still leave the Paladin's mount progression just one level behind a standard paladin's, and will give +Cha to Ranged attacks a number of times per day equal to the Paladin's Charisma bonus, rather than 1+1/4 levels.

[Answerer]

Battle Blessing (auto-Quicken on Paladin spells), Zen Archery (Wis instead of Dex to ranged attacks), and Serenity (Paladin class features depend on Wis instead of Cha) become must-have feats. I wouldn't even consider this unless you're starting at level 6 and can have all three.

Find an Elf subrace that boosts Wis.

[Fluffy_1.0]

Forest Lord Elf with harmonious knight substitution levels (if you can convince your DM to allow you to take treat the substitution levels like alternate class features instead of actual substitution levels)

Take Zen archery and dragon fire inspiration. Maximize your inspire courage and take a couple of ranger levels for rapid shot. Most of the other posts apply to this as well.

[Answerer]

Forest Lord Elf with harmonious knight substitution levels (if you can convince your DM to allow you to take treat the substitution levels like alternate class features instead of actual substitution levels)

Take Zen archery and dragon fire inspiration. Maximize your inspire courage and take a couple of ranger levels for rapid shot. Most of the other posts apply to this as well.
This is a very good idea; archery demands bonus damage that Paladins just do not get.

[Solaris]

I was just flipping through Races Of The Wild, and I saw that Elf Paladins can get a Unicorn as their special Mount.

They really screwed the pooch with that one. See, in the DMG it states that any paladin can get a unicorn mount at 6th level, and it's at a -1 penalty instead of the -6 penalty for level calculation. Unless there's errata I don't know about... don't get that substitution level.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Elf paladin/ Ranger supper mount who also happens to use bows?

May work out better plus allowing your mount to have more HP, could take for you.

[rjclark]

You do have 2 other options, first is take the feats you need for ranged attacks, point blank shot rapid shot, precise shot, weapon focus ect.. This will take you a few levels to get really good at.

your second option, if you want to be more combat efficient quicker is this, start as a fighter, take point blank shot and weapon focus at 1st level, at 2nd shield specialization buckler, 3rd rapid shot, 4th weapon specialization, the switch to paladin at 6th you can take improved buckler so you can retain your shield bonus when using your bow.

Either way you aren't a front line tank, you have to rely on the rest of your party for that, you have to utilize your inherent mobility, and somewhere you will benefit from combat expertise. Building an elven paladin means finesse not sheer power. :smallsmile:

[Psyren]

Swap in the Pathfinder Paladin (www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin) imo. Not only are they much better at ranged combat and less MAD, PF is kinder to archers in general.

[Keld Denar]

Don't tank your Cha. Paladin archers can use Divine Might to get +cha to damage. Works really well on rounds where you Rapid Shot.

It required Power Attack, but nothing in the text of Divine Might states that it its melee only.